COMMONLY USED LINUX COMMANDS

COMMONLY USED LINUX COMMANDS

File/Directory Basics

ls                List files

cp               Copy files

mv              Rename files

rm              Delete files

ln                Link files

cd               Change directory

pwd            Print current directory name

mkdir          Create directory

rmdir                    Delete directory

File Viewing

cat              View files

less            Page through files

head                    View file beginning

tail              View file ending

nl                Number lines

od               View binary data

xxd             View binary data

gv               View Postscript/PDF files

xdvi            View TeX DVI files

File Creation and Editing

emacs        Text editor

vim             Text editor

umask        Set default file protections

soffice        Edit Word/Excel/PowerPoint docs

abiword      Edit Word documents

gnumeric   Edit Excel documents

File Properties

stat             Display file attributes

wc              Count bytes/words/lines

du               Measure disk usage

file              Identify file types

touch          Change file timestamps

chown        Change file owner

chgrp         Change file group

chmod       Change file protections

chattr                   Change advanced file

attributes

lsattr           List advanced file

attributes

File Location

find             Locate files

slocate       Locate files via index

which         Locate commands

whereis      Locate standard files

File Text Manipulation

grep           Search text for matching

lines

cut              Extract columns

paste          Append columns

tr                 Translate characters

sort             Sort lines

uniq            Locate identical lines

tee              Copy stdin to a file and

to stdout simultaneously

File Compression

gzip            Compress files (GNU Zip)

compress Compress files (Unix)

bzip2          Compress files (BZip2)

zip              Compress files (Windows Zip)

File Comparison

diff              Compare files line by line

comm.        Compare sorted files

cmp            Compare files byte

by byte

md5sum    Compute checksums

Disks and Filesystems

df                Show free disk space

mount        Make a disk accessible

fsck            Check a disk for errors

sync           Flush disk caches

Backups and Remote Storage

mt               Control a tape drive

dump         Back up a disk

restore       Restore a dump

tar               Read/write tape archives

cdrecord    Burn a CD

rsync          Mirror a set of files

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